One of the things I did prior to my first total knee replacement, a.k.a. new Knee, was to get on a couple of Facebook pages to try to get some tips and tricks. I actually did read a few things that I applied that helped in recovery among the posts upon posts that show how absolutely horrible other humans take care of themselves. Overall, I did my best to “recover” and now, 8 weeks later, I would consider myself to have been fully recovered for a while now.

One thing I hear repeatedly, ad nauseam, is that IT TAKES A YEAR TO RECOVER!!! I believe if I audited every post comment section, this statement would be in there somewhere. OH! Also, there are so many nightmare stories on the Facebook page that it’s a wonder anyone reading actually goes through with the surgery. While I have had smooth sailing so far, I can’t get cocky yet because I’m a few weeks away from getting the other one done and I need that to go as well before I can be a total dick on the internet about how these really aren’t so bad. Wish me luck.

Anyways.

I contest, and I’m right of course, that it in fact does not take a year to recover. We’re not using our words here and you KNOW how much I hate that. While “recovery” is a bit subjective, we can probably agree that we are recovered once we are back to our daily lives prior to the surgery. We’re walking (without a limp because we did the excruciating work of getting that knee straight immediately), we’re driving (even to Arkansas 6 weeks post op so I could bring my ice machine and pillows), we’re back at work (if that’s your thing), we’re making sure we’re kneeling on the knee (even just with pillows or the bed) to condition it, we’re squatting (truth be told, we started box squatting at 3 weeks with a 15# bar and went up each week from there), we’re constantly rubbing on it to desensitize it and wake up the nerve endings that are still happily sleeping. We’re recovered. BAM! Done-zo. What’s the big deal?

At week 2, the HHH took me to the gym (THE gym, not MY gym. I also have a membership to a local gym to use the machines which has been instrumental in getting me on track in MY gym.) The owner made a comment such as, ‘you poor thing’ or some shit and I told her I’m actually doing awesome and super grateful for it. She repeated to be “patient” during recovery, but I already knew that recovery wasn’t the issue. Other than those initial first few trips to P.T. (getting in the car and holding my leg just right the first two P.T.s was incredibly unpleasant) and getting my leg straight (it made me cry), recovery is just physical work aided by happy drugs and a super sexy deliriously sleep deprived nurse HHH encouraging me along the way. Talking to the gym owner, it occurred to me and I said it out loud, “I think the work comes when I have to make this knee my own.” It was pretty profound, for me, but ya know I was still on the Oxy so it probably wasn’t as impressive as I think.

See, this isn’t my knee. It doesn’t have the pain of my knee (on day 5, I was toddling around the house on my walker and put my full weight on my right side. It was the first time I stood without pain in at least two years.) It doesn’t have the giving out (I mean, after the first week or two when my quad would just think it could take a second or two off) of my knee. It doesn’t wake me up at night from pain like my knee did. Other than the aforementioned straightening tears, it doesn’t make me cry like my knee did. This is not my knee. It’s hard (the feel of it really grosses me out. I massage a lot just so I can get used to the new feeling but it’s a little barfy. And hairy because I can’t feel the razor when I shave and don’t want to jam it into my skin, so I miss parts of the knee. There are worse things in life) much harder than me knee. It feels like there is a titanium beach ball in my knee. It’s not my knee. I have to make it my knee. And I’ll give myself time for that. Maybe a year. I hope sooner but we’ll see. (I started and ended the paragraph with the same word. I’m cool like that.)

I still can’t snatch or clean, even a power clean, because the fast change of direction needed while moving my feet out into a different position is a pain that I’m not willing to tolerate, yet. Pushing weight off of the ground is getting better. Jumping without weight is getting better. The range of motion for jerk dips is getting better. But we’re not there, and I have time. I asked my brilliant surgeon (I say that because I’m going to print this off and give it to him, but he really is quite awesome) how long it takes the implement to heal enough where pain is the only preventer of training, and I can’t damage the knee. 6 weeks was the answer and I’m plus two weeks on that. I can squat to depth which I do while holding on to the squat rack because the last thing I want to do is build up fluid in the left knee and have that pop right before surgery. But I know that when that left one is ready, I’ll be squatting without pain for the first time in years. I’m pretty stoked. All this comes with a compromise with my body that we’re going to make these new knees our own. And it will take time.

I’m recovered, but the knee isn’t mine. Yet. It may take a year for that to happen, and it is something that I will need to push if I want to get “back” to where I was (which I don’t. I want better. I’m greedy like that.) If I were to give advice to someone getting a knee replacement, I would tell them that, you will recover fairly quickly but you need time to make it your own. Take the time, enjoy the journey.

Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out. Robert Collier